This month, I see that I was charged a $39.00 late fee. Oops! The minimum payment must have gone up again by $1. Yep. Exactly. But this time, there was a CASH BACK CREDIT ON MY ACCOUNT. For a minimum payment of $67, I actually had a $20+ credit as well as a $65 payment that I had sent in. Why was I charged a late fee? The reply was a lot of mumbo jumbo which I translate as: “We really have to find a way to make up lost revenue for these NEW credit card regulations.”

I spoke to Jennifer E. She was unhelpful and could only think to spew the company line.

“From a company standpoint, we cannot continue to give you credits,” she said. “This just happened two months ago.”

“How long have I been with your company?” I asked.

“Since 2006,” she said.

“How many times have I asked for an exception on a late payment?”

“This just happened two months ago.”

“Right. Once.”

Jennifer basically indicated that she cares more about $78.00 in fees than a four year customer. How much money in interest has American Express made off of me in four years? A lot more than $78.00. But I wasn’t upset about the fee. It’s my responsibility to know when my payment increases.

I’m upset because there was a $20 cash back credit on my account, which would more than cover the $2.00 “delinquency.”

Say, can I get that cash back in…well, cash? That way, I could make up the difference — the $2 difference — that you just charged me $39.00 for. And could you please, please PLEASE not raise my interest rates because I was $2.00 short on my minimum payment?

This practice is unethical.

I’m sure it’s legal, though.

Mr. Chenault, in the interest of ethics, I would like to have my $39.00 back OR I would like for you to remove the $20 you credited to my account and send me a check. You can’t have it both ways.

And I would like to keep my current interest rate, which is astronomically high. An adjustment that your folks told me “had nothing to do with my excellent history with the company, but that was `standard, due to the economy.’”

And, I would like to keep my reduced credit line, which you told me “had nothing to do with my excellent history with the company, but that was `standard, due to the economy.’”

And I would like for someone to contact me, if it’s not too much trouble.

Oh, and you might want to help Jennifer with her customer service skills.

That is all.

Thank you.

I think that there comes a point in everyone’s life where she wonders whether or not giving up and giving in is the same as relaxing into the flow of life. I had a very good friend once who told me not to worry so much about smoking. She said that when I was ready to give it up, I would. Instead of continuing to fight the addiction, beat myself up and then smoke again, she said that I should stop focusing on it and just wait until I was ready.

Of course, this goes against everything within me. Sometimes, you have to just make yourself do what you need to do, right? You have to be unrelenting with yourself in order to make things change. I suppose this all goes to your philosophy of life. My brother’s philosophy is simple: you are going to die. Don’t know when. Don’t know how. But, news flash — it’s going to happen. On health, though, he has determined that he won’t die because he was too lazy to get up and go to the gym. His kids won’t grow up without a Dad because he was lazy. If he dies on the treadmill, well, at least he tried.

Then, there’s my mother. She believes that everything happens for a reason and that God is in control. God will only allow things to happen to you that are meant to happen. This provides her some comfort when she thinks about the accident that killed my father 30 years ago. You see, had he not been taken from us, we would have never been blessed by my step-father. So, if your lungs give out or you have a stroke, it’s all God’s will. Then again, she eats healthily, does things like drink hot water because it’s good for digestion, and drinks diluted vinegar.

And then, there’s me. I know that we have control over the things we do and what happens to us in life, which is why I beat myself up over smoking. I SHOULD beat myself up over it, right?! This is a known cancer-causing habit. WTF??? I also know that there are some things outside of my control. A co-worker at my last job never smoked a day in her life and died of lung cancer. What gives? How are we supposed to live with this uncertainty? What are we responsible for and what do we leave to God? Sounds simple, I know. But, it all depends on your philosophy of life.

So what’s your philosophy on life? How do you deal with the uncertainty of sickness and disease? What if you do everything right? What then? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I have come to understand that I cannot help myself. Let me repeat that: I cannot help myself. Sure, there are behaviors that I can try to modify and there are habits I can try to curb, but that’s not the true nature of help.

to help: to give or provide what is necessary to accomplish a task or satisfy a need; contribute strength or means to; render assistance to; to save; rescue; to remedy, stop, or prevent.

That is the definition of “to help.” I cannot do any of those things in my own strength. I cannot provide what is necessary to others to help when I don’t have it myself. I cannot save or rescue myself. I cannot save or rescue anyone else. This is a hard truth to come to terms with.

In the Bible, Paul describes his frustration in his inability to change. In Romans 7:15 he says:

I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.

Yep. that sounds a lot like me. Glad to know that I was in such good company!

Years ago, I considered myself a very religious person. I read my Bible, prayed daily and attended worship services frequently. But when my beliefs no longer fit my worldview, when I found it difficult to reconcile what I had learned in my church and what was happening in my life, I turned away. There are still times when I read a biblical commentary from some idiot on the web and cringe. There are still times when I hear televangelists simplify life’s problems into God “building our characters” at our own expense that I shudder. Most days, I don’t know what to believe. But what I do know for sure is that I cannot “help” myself. True assistance can only come from a connection to a higher consciousness.

As Albert Einstein so eloquently put it:

you cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew.

And the Bible in Romans 12:2:

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.

So, this is what I will seek. This is not to say that I will no longer post on helpyourselfblog.com, but I will stop doing challenges, trying to push myself to conform into some mold that doesn’t fit my spirit – even when it is good for me. Rather, I will try to share information that will help to bring me closer to my goal and to create a community where we can all learn from each others’ lessons.

Thank you for your patience in my absence. I appreciate each and every one of you.

–Tiffany

How many times have you gone to meet with a financial advisor and they offer you an annuity? How many times have you heard about how awful annuities are? The truth is annuities very rarely make good investment vehicles.

In light of the recent market volatility, variable annuities are being reintroduced to a broader audience. Pre-retirees and retirees are giving annuities a second look because of the tax-deferred features and income guarantees. Is an annuity right for you? Let’s take a look at a few of the basics:

What is an annuity?

An annuity is a contract between you and a life insurance company that promises you lifelong income in exchange for a lump sum payment or series of payments to the insurer. The income arrives in periodic payments, either at once (an immediate annuity) or in the future (a deferred annuity, which also offers you tax-deferred growth of the assets inside it).

A look at the Pros and Cons of Annuities

As an independent financial advisor who gets paid a fee only rather than commission, I am always looking at the pros and cons of various investments. Let’s take that same approach with an annuity. There generally are two types of annuities – fixed or variable annuities. Fixed are tied to interest rates or indexed annuities tied to various indexes and variable are tied to the investment performance of the mutual funds within the policy. Let us look at the good, bad, and ugly features of the most popular type of annuities- variable.

The Good

Annuity ownership does come with some attractive benefits such as:

1. Flexibility and investment choices – Variable annuities have sub-accounts with various mutual funds to select from. This makes it easy to change investment direction or your allocations with little or no costs.

2. Tax deferral for your investment gains – Just like your 401k or IRA, your contributions and earnings can grow tax-deferred until you withdraw funds. If this is in a non-qualified account (non IRA or retirement), you do not have to make mandatory withdrawals at age 70 ½.

3. Income for life – I will concede that no other investment allows for the creation of income for life. Once you select monthly payments (or annuitize) your annuity contract, the insurance company will guarantee you (and your spouse, should you desire) the income payment for the rest of your life. This is like creating your very own pension!

4. Asset protection – In certain states, annuities are a shelter from creditors. If you work in a field prone to lawsuits or even if you are in a car accident, protecting your assets is important. Annuities typically provide this type of protection.

5. Potential protection from market losses. Many variable annuities let you benefit from stock market gains while shielding you against stock market losses. In the past, many have offered the annuity holder at least a minimum rate of return (a GMIB, or Guaranteed Minimum Income Benefit). Many have also offered guarantees that the annuity value will not dip below the value of the initial principal (a GMAB, or Guaranteed Minimum Accumulation Benefit). However keep in mind these guarantees are expensive and come with many strings attached. So buyers beware.

The Bad

1. Irreversible consequences. The idea of income for life sounds enticing but here are a few cavots. For example, once you annuitize (create income for life or a period of time), it often becomes irreversible. You often give up the ability to get your lump sum back or even pass it to “other beneficiaries”. So say you put $250,000 into an annuity at age 60 and accept the insurance company’s offer to pay you a monthly income for the rest of your life. It could take 20 to 25 for you to break even on that investment.

2. Locked up until 59 ½. Another downside is that once you put funds into an annuity contract you cannot touch those funds until you reach age 59.5. Otherwise you have to pay a 10% penalty for early withdrawals.

3. Poor tax planning. A withdrawal from an annuity is treated as ordinary income rather than qualifying for the often more favorable long-term capital gains treatment. When you do start to take funds from the contract, the portion of your payments that are considered investment gains are taxed at your ordinary income tax rate instead of the long-term capital rates. This rate could be higher than the current capital gains rate.

4. Insurance company financial health. You can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can judge an insurance company by its Comdex ranking. This is a useful place to start. As the name implies, the Comdex is a composite index: an average percentile ranking of credit ratings provided for life and health insurance companies by firms such as Moody’s Investors Service, A.M. Best Company and Standard & Poor’s Corporation.

The Comdex ranks insurers using a weighted average on a scale of 1 to 100, 100 being best. If an insurer has a Comdex rating of 85, for example, that means the Comdex has ranked its strength and solvency as superior to 85% of the insurance companies in the index. If you want to see the actual ranking/opinion of Moody’s or Best or another credit firm rather than an average, visitwww.iii.org/individuals/life/buying/strength – this is the website of the Insurance Information Institute, a longstanding information source for media and the public about the insurance industry. Or find your state insurance department viawww.naic.org.

5. Inability to screen for your moral and social preferences. Most annuities have no choice for morally or socially conscious investors. Your investments may be supporting companies involved in abortion, pornography, embryonic stem cell research, gambling, tobacco, alcohol, or other issues important to you.

The Ugly

1. Surrender charges – If it’s not bad enough that your funds are tied up until age 59 ½, you also have to be careful because most insurance companies also charge a surrender fee (usually on a five to seven year scale). These fees often start at around 8% in the first year down to 0% in year seven. So, a $100,000 investment could cost you $8,000 (8%) in surrender fees if you take your money out in the first year. It will usually go down 1% per year until reaching 0% at the end of the surrender period.

2. Up-front commissions. Annuities are still primarily a commission-based product. They can pay commissions of 5% or more to the agent who sells them to you. That’s $5,000 or more in commissions for each $100,000! Don’t be afraid to ask about the commission he or she collects by selling you the annuity before you invest. Not that it always influences a recommendation, but you have to be careful as some agents are glorified salespeople looking for their next commission check.

3. Annual fees, administrative charges, mortality expenses, and other charges - With so many layers of fees, how will you make money? I have seen investors who have been in annuities for 10 years or more make very little money because of these high fees. It will affect your investment performance. These charges are often buried into the cost of your annuity. Reading a prospectus is often eye-opening!

As you can see, everything is not what it appears with an annuity. You need to read all of the fine print before investing a dime.

Five questions I would ask before investing include:

1. Where is your money going and what values are you supporting?
2. How much risk are you taking?
3. Is your money liquid and easily accessible?
4. What rate of return should you expect in this low rate environment?
5. How do you protect yourself from taxes and inflation?

If the investment you are considering doesn’t answer these five questions in a way that you feel satisfied, go with your gut instinct, and look elsewhere. Annuities are certainly not a fit for everyone!

This article is printed with permission from ChristianPF. Jay Peroni, CFP is the founder and editor of FaithBasedInvestor.com, a Christian stock investing newsletter. He is an author, speaker, and financial advisor. He’s been featured on Crosswalk.com, TheStreet.com, and here at ChristianPF.com. Jay started FaithBasedInvestor.com to help investors find investments they can be ?”proud to own”. For a FREE report on how to screen your investments and build a winning portfolio, go to FaithBasedInvestor.com.

The articles on this site are for entertainment purposes and should not be taken as financial advice. Please contact a financial professional for specific advice regarding your situation.

ChristianPF was one of the very first personal finance blogs I started following and it’s an honor to be writing here. I’m very grateful to Bob for giving me an opportunity to be a regular contributor at ChristianPF and I look forward to interacting with all of you along the way!

My wife and I just recently built a new home and moved in a couple weeks ago.  It feels good to be done, although we probably won’t be settled for a while yet. There are some good financial lessons to be learned from building a home.  If any of you have done it, you know what I’m talking about.

There’s a lot that goes into building and each step needs to be done in a certain order otherwise nothing will get accomplished!

The same can be said for our personal finances.  We need to have a good plan and make sure things get done correctly, otherwise we’ll be spinning our wheels. So, here are some lessons learned from the building process and a blueprint for all of us to build our financial house:

Footings

Under every house is a foundation, and under most foundations are footings. Footings are extremely important because they are the basis on which the foundation is laid. Improper footings will not allow the foundation to withstand the give and take of the soil. So what are the footings in personal finance?

Giving

A heart of generosity and a willingness to let go of our own stuff to meet the needs of others is one of the footings on which we build our financial house.  Why? Because God was so generous to us – therefore that characteristic should flow through us as well.

I know what some of you are thinking, “But I don’t have enough money to give” – well certainly there are other things you can give, like time.  But let me ask you – how much have you prayed about your giving?  Have you considered selling things you do have to help meet the needs of others? Giving is a critical footing that we must not simply ignore.

Proper Attitude

An attitude of stewardship - not ownership – should be a key footing as well. In other words, as stewards we should desire to make more money, get out of debt, and get our spending under control because we are handling God’s money – not ours.

When we realize that we are to be responsible managers for God’s currency and that our money is simply a conduit of grace, we can begin to have the proper motivation to get a handle on our money.

Foundation

The foundation is the next crucial piece to building a house.  The foundation for constructing a well-built financial house are things like cash flow, emergency fundsand a commitment to getting rid of non-mortgage debt!

Cash Flow

This is simply your income minus expenses. Why is this so important?  Because the secret to getting ahead financially is that there is no secret – spend less than you make.  Everything else hinges on this very point.

Emergency Funds

This also is extremely important because inevitably things come up.  Cars break down, roofs leak, furnaces go out.  So you must have the ability to pay for the emergencies without racking up credit card debt.

Paying off non-mortgage debt

Credit cards, car loans and the like are mole hills in a garden.  Working hard at getting rid of those types of debts will help free you to give more, save more and invest for your future.

Framework

Framing is one of the exciting parts of building a house.  You finally get an idea of what the house will be like.  It’s also key because you need the proper beams in the right places to support the house.

Insurance

Proper insurance coverage is your support beam for your financial house.  This includes reviewing and acquiring proper health, home/auto, disability and life insurance.

Let’s take for example life insurance.  Unfortunatley, there are a lot of misconceptions when purchasing these policies, so you need to make sure you ask the right questions before you buy life insurance.

Exterior Shell – Roof, Brick and Windows

Now this is where building really gets fun and the house begins to take on the character of what you were envisioning when you began the process.

In personal finance the exterior shell would be things like:

Saving for Retirement

Funding your 401k plan, IRA, or Roth IRA is a big step toward getting your financial house in order.  This is the fun pat!  Seeing these accounts build up and realizing that you are saving toward a long-term goal is exciting.

Saving for Other Goals

This could be college savings for your kids, saving for a rental home or even your first house.  Having the ability to sock some cash away for these things is a great feeling.

Final Touches

Getting the drywall in and painted, the flooring and carpet in and making some final touches on the inside is when the house comes together and you’re just about ready to move in.

From a financial standpoint some of these final touches may include things like:

Tax Diversification

This simply means utilizing your investment accounts from the best tax perspective so that you’re not left holding a huge tax time-bomb in retirement. You may want to consider shifting your savings around to help diversify yourself from a tax stand point.

Investment Strategies

At the beginning, it’s good to just get saving.  But as you progress and your account balances begin to grow, you may want to re-evaluate your portfolios to determine if you should employ more sophisticated investment strategies to help maximize your returns and minimize losses.

Something to Remember

Building a house is a process that takes time, effort and energy – and things don’t always go as planned.  Don’t get discouraged, and keep plugging away.  The end result will be well worth it!

The articles on this site are for entertainment purposes and should not be taken as financial advice. Please contact a financial professional for specific advice regarding your situation.

Many of these examples I have personally used to add extra income to my household when needed. I am not going to focus on starting an online business in this post (although, for the diligent there is money to be made in blogging, Adsense, creating your own products, selling on Ebay, and affiliate sales.) Instead, I want to introduce to you a few reputable work-from-home companies that will pay you for your work. All of these will send 1099’s for tax purposes.

5 legit opportunities to work from home

1. Demand Studios

They have many different employment opportunities that range from Writers, Editors, Title Editors, Filmmakers, and more. They are usually hiring for certain positions at certain times so you have to keep your eyes peeled. I have made several thousand dollars in article writing and title editing. I even got my wife into doing title editing and earning extra spending money. As a writer you can make between $7.50-$20.00 per 150-500 word article. I usually write about two articles an hour (that’s $30.00 an hour at $15.00 an article). You do not have to be a prolific writer or have a background in writing to get accepted. Most articles are in a “How to” format. So, if you are the type that enjoys learning something new and then explaining it to someone else then this could be a fun work for you. Most of their content goes on eHow.com or LiveStrong.com.

Let’s say you have a trip you want to take in a month. Just decide how many articles you would have to write a day to reach your goal. They pay by Paypal every Wednesday and Friday. There is no payment threshold that you have to meet either. If you have money in your account, you will get paid. They currently have thousands of titles to choose from in the system and you can reserve up to ten at a time. if this interests you, feel free to contact me on some tips for the application process.

2. Live Work

This is mostly like a running projects board for a company called LiveOps (which I will discuss later on). Live Work has many different projects that you can bid on. Many are data entry and task-oriented. You work as much as you want. I once worked on a Dictonary.com project and was paid for every definition and source that I put in the system. There really is a wide-variety of work available there.

3. Leapforce

They are a vendor for Google. Once you are accepted in the program you log-in to the Google interface and rate websites. Google wants their searches to be relevant. They use human raters to rate whether the content is worthy or spam. At the time of this writing, they pay $11.50 an hour.

4. Textbroker

This is a great place to earn extra income if you want to write on simple projects. They pay is much less, but the projects are easy to write on. I once wrote several 150 word articles for someone that was creating an Extreme Sports website. The work was fun. I simply wrote a short bio about different professional athletes.

5. Liveops

If you want more human interaction, then you might want to consider LiveOps. LiveOps is an at home call service that you dial into while in the comfort of your own home. You will have to make a weekly schedule, but you will never have to commute anywhere. All calls are inbound from people responding to infomercials and you basically take their ordering information while being logged into the LiveOps system. They pay is around $9.50 but you do earn commission for different products sold.

Wrapping it up

Hopefully, this list will get you started thinking about ways to supplement your income. This resource is also good for Stay-at-home moms that are looking for ways to earn so money without being on a tight schedule. There are many more work-from-home companies out there, but these are all ones I have had personal interaction with and can recommend that they are legitimate. If you have additional questions, please feel free to ask in the comments and I would be happy to answer any questions.

This article is printed with permission from ChristianPF.

Jonathan Milligan is a full-time blogger and Career Coach. He dedicates his time to teaching others how to form simple life habits in the area of money, relationships, faith, career and time management. He is the author of The Simple Life Habits Formula which can be downloaded for free on his blogSimpleLifeHabits.com.

The articles on this site are for entertainment purposes and should not be taken as financial advice. Please contact a financial professional for specific advice regarding your situation.

1. You Haven’t Faced Your Own Worst Enemy: You.

Look at yourself in the mirror, because that’s the person that’s hindering your plan to get and stay out of debt. You must have a revelatory change about debt if you ever want to conquer it for good. Treat it like any other goal you’ve ever set out to accomplish, and be willing to make sacrifices to accomplish getting out of debt. You’ll never get and stay out of debt unless you tame the face in the mirror first.

2. You Don’t Have A Written Plan To Get Out Of Debt.

Getting out of debt is serious business, and you need to have a carefully crafted plan for accomplishing the goal. One of the more famous plans for getting out of debt isDave Ramsey’s plan. Using the Debt Snowball Method, he teaches to list all of your debts from smallest to largest. Then, attack the smallest debt first, and once that’s paid off, put the money you were using to pay off the previous debt towards the next debt. There is some controversy as to whether this is the best way to get out of debt, but Ramsey focuses more on behavior, rather than numbers. He is more concerned with helping you build momentum, which will ultimately motivate you to finish your “get out of debt” plan.

3. You Haven’t Broken The Car Financing Cycle.

The moment you buy a new car or a newer car and you finance it, you’ve begun a vicious cycle of constantly relying on a car payment while owning a car. The average car payment in North America is over $350 a month! I don’t think you should drive a clunker your whole life, but if you can resist the urge to buy a new car, you can gradually move up in car by buying with cash when you have the money saved up and can afford the expense.

4. You Aren’t In Control Of Your Variable Expenses.

A variable expense would be any monthly expense that is controlled by your daily decisions and habits. Eating out, entertainment, dry cleaning, small vacations, gifts, and life’s little luxuries are all variable expenses that you can control. All of these types of expenses should be a part of your written budget, and you should put a reasonable dollar amount value on these expenses. Once you’ve hit the limit for the month, you stop spending in that category.

5. Your Fixed Expenses Are Too High.

It’s really tough to get out of debt if you don’t have any extra income to put towards it after all of your monthly bills are paid. If this is the case, you either have an income problem and you need to brainstorm ways to increase your monthly income, or your fixed expenses are too high. Are you house poor? If you’re monthly mortgage/rent exceeds 30% of your monthly income, then you may need to consider downsizing in house. Utility bills, insurance premiums, and auto expenses are more fixed expenses that can easily drain your monthly income if they are too high.

This article isn’t meant to put you down. It’s meant to help you realize the roadblocks in your financial life that could keep you from getting out of debt and staying out of debt. Getting out of debt is so important to good financial health, because monthly debt payments drain your monthly income, and it keeps you fromsaving for retirement, children’s education, and large purchases. It’s the first step to building wealth, but it’s also one of the hardest thing to do. Are you ready to start lifting the roadblocks that keep you from getting out of debt?

This article is printed with permission from ChristianPF.  This is a guest post written by Erik Folgate, writer and editor for the Money Crashers personal finance blog. Money Crashers provide useful tips and tricks for related topics like investing, credit and debt, financial education, frugality, and more.

The articles on this site are for entertainment purposes and should not be taken as financial advice. Please contact a financial professional for specific advice regarding your situation.

While I was striving to win the prize, I realized that I was also learning some life lessons.

No Matter How Small the Request, When You Need Help, It’s Okay to Ask for It

I posted my request for assistance on my page, I sent personal emails, I started chats with people. I went full-out to win the prize. And, every day, to my utter surprise, people responded. I asked for a “Facebook favor” and people went out of their way to help me. When they were confused about whether they had fulfilled the request sufficiently, they contacted me to make sure they were able to help. When I asked folks to post my request on THEIR pages, they did it! Everyone of my “friends” on Facebook and their friends, were more than glad to assist me, even with a silly request that had absolutely no payback for them.

People are Generous and Willing to Help

We look at the news and make up our minds that people are inherently evil, but this is just not true. More often than not, people are generous, kind and willing to help their friends and neighbors. More importantly, this cuts across all lines: race, gender, sexuality?my friends run the gamut, and all of them helped.

People Want You to Succeed

The universe is a friendly place and whether we want to believe it or not, I learned that people want you to succeed. Over and over, people let me know that they were pulling for me and that they wanted me to win. It was a great feeling to know that so many people, without a vested interest in my success, were still hoping that I would succeed.

As I rounded the corner of the contest, it occurred to me that if I applied the same diligence, networking, and perseverance in my life that I had applied to the contest, I would be an unstoppable force. So, thank you Facebook, for connecting people together in a way that has never been possible, and thank you Saddleback Leather Company, for giving me something to shoot for. I didn’t win a bag.

I won a whole lot more.

Thank you everyone. I appreciate all your support!

Unless you have been living under a rock lately, you are well aware that our country is about to see some major changes to health care. Health care reform was a top priority of President Obama and it has been very apparent as he has been very determined to sign his reform bill into law.

To be frank, I haven’t been following the whole thing as closely as I would like. I feel like I still need to do some homework to get caught up on the details, but below I have pasted in a great article (from healthinsuranceproviders.com) that explains what the Obama’s health care bill will mean for us – this year, next year, and in the years to come.

If you are unsure of the details, I recommend reading it. There really are a lot of changes that will likely be affecting every American. It isn’t one of those obscure bills that only affects a small handful of people.

So, as the details continue to unfold – which I am sure this whole health care reform thing is just beginning, I will continue to post helpful info about it. Enjoy!

On 3/23/2010 President Obama signed the health care reform bill into law. While there are still differences that need to be reconciled between the various versions of the healthcare bill here is the timeline for the health care reform changes and how Obama’s health plan and health care reform affects you and your health insurance:

New Health Care Bill: Changes Happening in 2010

• Children age 26 and younger will be able to remain covered under their parents health insurance plans (this is increased from past age limits which were anywhere from age 22-25).
• Medicare recipients will receive a $250 rebate to help in closing the “doughnut hole” (with the goal being to close the doughnut hole completely by 2020).
• Health insurance companies will be banned from excluding coverage for pre-existing conditions for children.
• Adults with pre-existing conditions will be eligible for coverage into high risk health insurance pools until future health care exchanges are up and running.
• Health insurance companies will be prohibited from levying annual limits and lifetime limits on coverage.
• All new health insurance plans must provide coverage for preventative services with no out of pocket cost (all health plans will be forced to comply by 2018).
• Those companies that offer health benefits for early retirees ages 55 to 64 will receive assistance from a temporary reinsurance program.
• All new health insurance plans will have to comply with new regulations that lay out an appeals process for when health insurance claims are denied.
• Small businesses that employ less than 50 people are eligible for a tax credit equal to 35% of their health insurance premiums (this increases to 50% by 2014).

New Health Care Bill: Changes Happening in 2011

• Medicare will offer wellness visits for free one a year and personalized prevention plans. All new Medicare plans will offer preventative services with no out of pocket cost.
• Seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage or the Prescription Drug Plan will receive a 50% discount on brand name drugs immediately with additional prescription drug discounts to follow.
• The current penalty tax of 10% on all distributions from a Health Savings Account before the age of 65 on nonqualified medical expenses will increase to 20%.
• A small business alternative to a cafeteria plan will be presented so that small businesses can offer tax free benefits without having to deal with the administrative costs of a cafeteria plan.
• Everyone earning more than $200,000 as an individual or $250,000 for those who file married filing jointly will have their Medicare payroll tax increased from the current 1.45% to 2.35%.

Health Care Bill: Changes Happening in 2013

• A $2,500 annual cap will be placed on all contributions to flexible spending accounts (amount indexed for inflation each subsequent year).
• The current tax deduction that employers receive for subsidizing the prescription drug costs of their employees who are eligible for Medicare Part D will be done away with.
• A 2.9% excise tax on the sale of medical devices will be put into place. Certain common items like glasses, hearing aids, etc. are exempted from this tax.
• The hospital insurance tax will increase .09% for those who earn more than $200,000 ($250,000 for those married filing jointly).
• Additional requirements on health insurance companies to implement uniform standards for exchanging health care information, electronic communication, and other measures to reduce insurance company administrative costs.
• The minimum threshold for being able to claim an itemized deduction for health care expenses increased from 7.5% to 10% of AGI although those over the age of 65 can stay at the 7.5% threshold through 2016.

Health Care Reform: Changes Happening in 2014

• All US citizens will be forced to have health insurance coverage considered acceptable by the US Government or else pay a fine of $95 in 2014, $325 in 2015, $695 in 2016 (capped at 2.5% of AGI). All of the fines are per person per year except for families have a cap on the total fine of $2,250 and the fine amount for children is half of the adult fine.
• Eligibility standards are implemented for newly formed health care exchanges.
• Businesses with 50 or more employees will face a fine of either $2,000 or $3,000 per employee for not offering health insurance coverage.
• Group health insurance plans have a maximum waiting period of 90 days.
• Health insurance companies are prohibited from using an individual’s health status to issue a policy or renew a policy. All pre-existing conditions must be covered and higher health insurance rates cannot be levied because of health, gender, etc.
• The eligibility standards for Medicaid will be changed to 133% of poverty for those who are not considered elderly.
• New annual fees will be levied on all health insurance providers based on an insurance companies market share and whose total premiums exceed $25 million.

Health Care Reform Bill: Changes Happening in 2018

The “Cadillac” health insurance plan tax will kick in. An excise tax will be levied on all employer provided health insurance plans costing more than $27,500 for families and $10,200 for individuals (with increased limits for those considered to be in “high risk” professions).

Thoughts?

What do you think about Obama’s health care reform? Is it good for you? Good for the country?

Friends are a Dime A Dozen—Penes are Limited Resources, Right?

Now that I’m a little older and wiser, I assumed that I didn’t have to follow my own advice. (Ain’t that the way it goes?) I decided that the sister-friends that I had made over the course of my life were my true friends—friends that I could be open and honest with at all times. What I re-learned with a friend that I thought I’d have until I was old and gray was this: a penis will trump a friendship, every time.

Penes Tell You What You Want to Hear. Friends Tell You What You Need to Hear.

Recently, I was having a conversation with a friend about open marriages in which I poo-poo’ed the idea. After all, if you wanted to have sex outside of your marriage, why marry in the first place? A tsunami of personal attacks from my friend followed. What I had forgotten was that the last two relationships that my friend had been in had been with men who were openly sleeping with other women. Whoops! By the time I realized what had happened and attempted to stop the onslaught of her wrath, I made another mistake: I uttered the truth. I told her that my opinion was that she was getting so upset because she also let men use her sexually.

Crickets.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: that’s just over-the-top. Not for us, I would have said 13 days ago. Little did I know it, though, our friendship had ended with a cricket chirp. There would be no reconciliation. Instead, there would be a two-week period of silence in which my friend’s justification of her relationships would harden and calcify. In the end, there would be a relationship homicide. After six years of speaking or seeing each other almost every day, a friendship would vanish into thin air—over a very well-used penis.

Penes Gratify Your Body. Friends Gratify Your Soul.

And so, I end just where I began: re-learning an old lesson. Don’t tell your friends about their dead-beat boyfriends. Don’t tell them that they deserve better or that they are being used. Don’t tell them anything at all about their relationships. These things are for them to learn, not necessarily for you to expose. That is unless you are a true friend. True friends are few and far between. The difference is that you will be willing to lose a friendship for a true friend. You will be willing to make observations to help your friend preserve her life, her health and her emotional stability, knowing that you run the risk of alienating her forever. And, you will do this in order to plant a seed. It may not land on fertile ground, but you will have done your part.

photo by: ajusticenetwork